Return 0
Return 0 is the 13th episode of Season 5, and the 103rd produced hour of Person of Interest. It originally aired on June 21, 2016. It is the final episode of Person of Interest. Synopsis Finch, Reese, Fusco and Shaw embark on one last mission to prevent Samaritan from destroying the Machine and cementing its hold over mankind. Origin of the Title Return 0 is a very common statement to exit C/C++ programs. The function main() would return zero after successfully completing its run, allowing an application to exit cleanly. In this episode, both Samaritan and the Machine are shut down. Main Plot Points The events in this episode are in Machine point of view and Samaritan point of view * Person of Interest: None * The upload of the ICE-9 virus has devastating global side effects. * Finch and Reese attempt to destroy a Samaritan copy located in the Federal Reserve, but it uploads itself to an orbiting satellite as a last resort. * Shaw and Fusco defend the Machine, learning of Blackwell's role in Root's murder. Shaw is shot, and Fusco is severely wounded in the process. * Finch attempts to sacrifice himself to upload a copy of the Machine to destroy Samaritan, but is preempted by Reese who sacrifices himself to save Finch instead. * The Machine follows Samaritan to the satellite and destroys it once and for all. * A week later, ICE-9 is contained and the "Northern Lights" program rendered defunct. * Shaw tracks Blackwell down and executes him for Root's murder. She then meets with a recovering Fusco and takes Bear with her as she leaves. * Finch returns to his fiancée, Grace, in Italy. * Having won, the Machine downloads into Finch's computer system and contacts Shaw with a new number or mission. * The events of the very last scenes are from the perspective of The Machine's duplicate, born out of the destruction of Samaritan and the successful uploading of the Machine's core code to an orbiting satellite. Flashbacks Episode Notes Production Notes Bloopers and Continuity Errors Music * "Bunsen Burner" - Cuts (when Finch gets to the rooftop) * "Metamorphosis 1" - Philip Glass (when Reese uploads The Machine's copy to the satellite) Trivia * The scene at the end of the episode, Shaw walks down 114th Street, answers the phone and looks up at the camera. This takes place on the same corner where Reese looked at the camera in the and answered the phone in . * The scene when Reese uploads The Machine's copy to the satellite before being killed was originally meant to be shown to the song "Heroes" by David Bowie. However, Jonah Nolan changed his mind after hearing a piano score written by Ramin Djawadi. Quotes * "Everyone dies alone. But if you meant something to someone, if you helped someone, or loved someone, if even a single person remembers you, then maybe you never really die. And maybe, this isn't the end at all." (The Machine, to itself; the last words of the series) * "In addition to this being now, it's also probably the end." (Finch, to The Machine) * "And what I found was that the moment that often mattered the most--the moment when you truly found out who they were--was often their last one." (The Machine, to Finch) * "God, you have her bad timing too." (Shaw, to The Machine, referring to Root) * "That's so perfect. You learned the secret of life and you've forgotten it." (Finch, to The Machine) * "When I hired you, I suspected you were going to be a great employee. What I couldn't have anticipated was that you would become such a good friend." (Finch, to Reese) * "If we were eating donuts and shooting cardboard cut-outs, you would be in charge." (Shaw to Fusco) * "I chose you for exactly who you are, but there's something I think Root had wanted to say to you. You always thought there was something wrong with you because you don't feel things the way other people do. But she always felt that was what made you beautiful. She wanted you to know that if you were a shape, you were a straight line. An arrow." (The Machine, to Shaw) * "When you came to me, you gave me a job. A purpose. At first... well, I've been trying to save the world for so long; saving one life at a time seemed a bit anticlimactic. But then I realized: Sometimes one life is the right life. It's enough." (Reese's last words, to Finch) * "I know I've made some mistakes. Many mistakes. But we helped some people... didn't we?" (The Machine, to Finch) "Yes. Yes we did." (Finch, to The Machine) * "If you can hear this, you're alone. The only thing left of me is the sound of my voice. I don't know if any of us made it. Did we win? Did we lose? I don't know. But either way, it's over. So let me tell you who we were. Let me tell you who you are. Someone once asked me if I had learned anything from it all. So let me tell you what I learned." (The Machine, to itself; after getting back alive from its core heuristics) Media References 5x13 5x13 5x13